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VI. Listen to the recorded text and practise consecutive interpreting.





The Montgolfiers Brothers

They were romantically-minded men and scientists. They dreamed of teaching people to soar up into the sky, having panic fear of height themselves. The Montgolfiers brothers ushered in a new era of aeronautics and thus marked the beginning of a long way of Man to the stars.

Joseph Michele Mongolfiere was born in 1740 in a small French town of Annon. In 5-year time his brother Jacques Etienne was born. Their father, the owner of a paper-producing factory, did his best to give his sons decent education. However, his elder son disappointed him. Joseph was a romantic light-minded teenager who could not stand school cramming. At the age of 19 he gave up studying and ran away from home. The youth dreamed of sunny lawns, horse-riding outings with dames but faced only poverty and starvation.

Unable to endure the hardships and privation, Joseph returned home to beg for his parents’ forgiveness and fell on his knees in front of them. Having repented he started diligent studies and was especially good at physics and chemistry.

Etienne, the younger of the brothers, was also a dreamer but unlike his brother he grew an obedient and persevering child. He became a famous architect in his youth. Later Etienne inherited the family business and came into possession of the paper-producing factory. His elder brother Joseph became his companion.

Business was successful, the incomes of the family increased and the brothers had a lot of free time left. They devoted it to their favorite pastime: science and dreams of flights. One day, while watching the clouds one of the brothers suggested filling a linen balloon with hot steam. Suppose, it might fly into the sky.

The experiment was a failure: the steam instantly cooled off and the drops precipitated on the linen cloth – so, the balloon never raised into the air. The brothers tried to fill the balloon with hydrogen but the gas immediately evaporated through the material. Then Joseph and Etienne made a paper balloon but disappointment awaited for them again: hydrogen infiltrated the paper pores.

But as it sometimes happens in the history of discoveries, an incident helped. Once, during a dinner party one of the brothers’ wives came up to the fire-place. A stream of hot air suddenly lifted the lower part of her skirt. All the present paid attention to the woman and she got embarrassed and blushed. But Joseph and Etienne had a brainwave: it is the air that the balloon should be filled with! And a miracle! This time the experiment was a success: the balloon rose into the air!

On June 5, 1783 the first public demonstration of the Mongolfiere brothers` discovery took place. Thousands of people gathered in the central square of the town of Annon. A huge balloon, the size of a three-story building, towered over the crowd. There was a Latin inscription on it: «Ad Astra» meaning «Towards the Stars». Eight robust men could hardly hold this monster by the ropes. Joseph commanded to release it. The balloon wrenched and flew vertically into the sky. All the people in the square gasped with admiration!

The next flight of the Montgolfiers (so the invention was called) took place in Paris in early September 1783. King Louis XVI himself honored the spectacle by his presence having shown a keen interest in aeronautics. The brothers hung up a basket for passengers. The animals – a duck, a rooster and a ram – were the first to be honored with the flight. The flight was a success, the animals did not suffer.

Despite the success Joseph and Etienne were disappointed: the man’s flight still remained a dream. Meanwhile, in the scientific community there was intense debate about the safety of such a flight: it was feared that people could suffocate because of the air shortage at an altitude. The King suggested sending two criminals that had been sentenced to death. However, his close friend, marquis d’Arland, was indignant: «Will the great honor to be the first to soar up to the skies really belong to the criminals? I will fly myself!»

Marquis d’Arland went into the air aboard the Mongolfiere on November 21, 1783 together with the well-known scientist Pilatre de Rosier. There were eye-witnesses of the flight and the majority of them were sure that the dare-devils’ death was inevitable. But there was no need for fears: the men safely returned to Earth.

Glory came to the Montgolfier brothers. In France mass enthusiasm for balloons began and soon it spread to other countries. But the brothers did not rush to fly as they had a panic fear of height. The romantic Joseph had ventured the flight only once. The flight took place on January 5, 1784 and almost ended up in a catastrophe. The balloon suddenly lost height and fell down, the basket with the passengers hit the ground and fell apart; the creator of the aerostat suffered most of all.

After that incident Etienne declared that he would never fly. And he was as good as his word. He died in August 1799 never having flown into the sky. Joseph outlived his younger brother for eleven years; he continued research having founded his own laboratory. He is also known in the history of discoveries as the inventor of a parachute, calorimeter and hydraulic press. But the Montgolfiere still remains a symbol of the breakthrough of Man into the sky.

 


 

 

 


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